Civil Unrest in Cairo, Egypt (3572 hits)

(Reuters) - Police fought with thousands of Egyptians who defied a government ban on Wednesday to protest against President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-old rule, firing rubber bullets and tear gas and dragging away demonstrators.
Protesters burned tires and hurled stones at police as groups gathered at different parts of the capital Cairo. Demonstrators also clashed in other cities around Egypt. In Suez, east of Cairo, protesters torched a government building.

The scenes were unprecedented in the country, one of the United States' closest Middle East allies, and follow the overthrow two weeks ago of another long-serving Arab strongman, Tunisian leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, in a popular revolt. Demonstrators complain of poverty, unemployment, corruption and repression and, inspired by the Tunisian revolt, demand that Mubarak step down.

Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have been a key means of communications for the protesters. Egyptians complained Facebook and Twitter were subsequently blocked, but many accessed them via proxies. The government denied any role. Showing their determination to continue, a new Facebook group was created calling for a protest on Friday, the Egyptian weekend. It secured 18,000 supporters within hours.

A Facebook spokesman in London said it had not seen any major changes in traffic from Egypt. Twitter confirmed its site was blocked on Tuesday.

The coordinated protests were unlike anything witnessed in Egypt since Mubarak came to power in 1981 after President Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Islamists.
As protests unfolded, Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid, who is also the acting investment minister, canceled a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, without giving a reason.